One thing I did end up doing well was I knew when to change pitchers. I didn't let a kid walk ten like you see on the little league ball fields all too often. As they say in baseball, I had a quick hook.
After days of deliberations, I'm bringing out the hook again. This time it's MD Anderson. It still is the greatest, one-bad-motha cancer fighting institution. But I need something different now.
My world is now that of the experimental drug. After days of thought, I realized that no matter how hard I try, I'll never quite understand all of the different drugs out there. I need a doctor who can help me navigate this new world. My doc at MD Anderson is certainly a leader in this area. But as I mentioned before, it's in the research part and not the people part. People are a big inconvenience for him.
So my reliever is a fella out of New York named Owen O'Connor. Dr. O is highly recommended by other patients afflicted with what I have. But most importantly, these patients have one thing in common and one thing that I badly want--they have a different attitude towards this cancer. They think this is a disease and no more. Dr. O's patients believe that you can go from treatment to treatment playing Whack-A-Mole with lymph nodes for quite some time. Even years. Try a treatment. See if that knocks any nodes to normal size. Then when it stops, go to another treatment. Eventually, yes, you run out of treatments. But I'll take a couple of years.
Now, I haven't told anyone besides my beautiful wife. I haven't even met Dr. O. although I have an appointment with him next week. So things could change. But I doubt it. I have a good feel for relievers.